emma

Charleston

Travel Nursing, Where We've Been

December 21, 2022

Charleston is another city I want to make it a point to go back to. It was another hot couple of days for this trip and we spent all day out and about exploring, and it was so incredibly worth it. It’s a coastal city full of colour, beautiful architecture, history, and of course delicious food. Neither of us had ever been anywhere quite like it.

We stayed at the Hampton Inn in North Charleston so not right in the city, but honestly it worked well for us. I want to say it was only a 10 minute drive or so to more central Charleston and it was nice having the option to hop back in our car to get to the other side of the city as we wanted to explore all over. Free parking was actually not difficult to find at all! We stayed for two nights and, I think, really made the most of our time in Charleston. There were still many places we wanted to check out that we didn’t make it too though so we’ll just have to go back 😉

Just walking around, especially South of Broad, it felt like every five steps we took we came across another beautiful garden, alley, house, ocean view, historical plaque, etc. that we had to stop to take a picture of. The food and shopping options are endless, and the history of the city is on display in the numerous parks, museums, mansions, and the Battery. It felt like a place that anyone could enjoy no matter their area of interest. And of course the weather was just wonderful.

We ate so much food on this trip and held true to our tendency to make that the center of our trips. Felix was the first restaurant we went to and it deserves an honorable mention. We just sat at the bar of this lovely little restaurant and had a great time chatting with the bartender. Dan and I have both been on an espresso martini kick since this trip because the one we had at Felix was just THAT good. None that we’ve had since compare. It seems, since Covid, that a lot of restaurants have started doing an industry discount for anyone who works in the restaurant industry, and it came up in conversation that I used to. So our bartender proceeded to apply a HEFTY discount to our entire bill, leaving us wishing we had ordered another (or maybe a couple more) espresso martinis. Everything we ate and drank was delicious, and the service was just incredible. We would definitely recommend checking it out!

One fun thing about Charleston that we weren’t expecting, were the ubiquitous horse drawn carriages throughout the city. Apparently, the do a lot of tours talking about the history of the city while the horses bring you all around. It was cool to see, but I’ve honestly always felt bad for the horses when I see that, especially in the heat of South Carolina in May. This was also probably the main negative we observed about Charleston…you can probably imagine that with all of those horses comes a bit of a smell from their, you know, droppings.

On the day we left, we ventured a bit outside of Charleston over to Sullivan’s Island where I had found a restaurant that I knew I wanted to stop by simply by the name. I just had to get a picture of myself by the Obstinate Daughter to send to my mum 😉 Little did we know that right by the restaurant was an old fort or bunker of some kind with free parking, and right by that was the most magical boardwalk through the forest to one of the most beautiful beaches we’ve ever been to. It’s not an obvious entrance at all, and I don’t know how to direct you much more than that, but it was such a perfect ending to our trip.